Solitary
by SilverSpiderArt
Summary: Pre-Movie: Megamind is once again back in his cell healing from yet another battle with Metro Man, the Warden drops by to talk. T for some swearing and adult themes mentioned


My ideas about Megamind are very strongly inspired by the excellent authors, Dal Niente, Dani Kin, and Ladyspock7.

I don't own Megamind. I own nothing but the weavings of my own imagination.

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In the background the TV played, but Megamind had long since tuned it out. Roxanne's rap up on today's events had finished and with it, his interest. He still ached from his collision with the brick wall; that had been unexpected. He was more resilient then his slight frame would suggest, though, and while it hurt like all hell, he managed not to break anything this time. Idly he runs his fingers over the bruised ribs, bandaged by the prison doctor. He'd need to extend his stay longer then he'd like in order to allow himself enough time to heal. One benefit of being confined exclusively solitary on his latest visits to Metrocity's Prison for the Criminally Gifted was no longer having to hide his injuries from his fellow inmates. He learned early on in life to never show weakness.

Tipping back in the chair he spun slowly, the painfully cheery décor of woodland animals passing in a colorful blur. The news continued to drone on. Minion would be safe back at Evil Lair by now, the brain bots having collected all the remnants of the fight and resulting explosion of Whaletor, the large vaguely whale shaped robot designed to drag Metro Man to his death beneath the icy waves of Lake Michigan. He had succeeded in pulling the hero underwater, but Metro Man had refused to properly drown and had instead flung Whaletor into the nearby abandoned dock and subsequently into Megamind. While dragging him back to prison mister goody-two-shoes even had the audacity to try and apologies, the nerve. Megamind stared up at the ceiling and crossed him arms with a snort, then winced as the motion pulled sore muscles and let his arms fall back to the arm rests of his high tech chair that doubled as monitoring device for the guard outside.

On the TV the news anchor moved onto a new topic, local business man complaining about the state of the city, "…is ridiculous that we have to put up with such vagrancy! It's the city's job to take care of such problems; an honest man shouldn't have to fear walking down the street. We need stricter laws regulating these panhandlers, they're nothing but…" Megamind found the remote is in his fist before he's aware of it, the room in sudden silence. His jaw clenched he glared at the black screen of the TV. Men like that don't deserve the air they breathe. They've never know what it is like to live on these streets. Michigan is cruel in winter and every year it takes a death toll amongst the unseen forgotten dregs of society. What do those mindless sheep know of being so cold that you'd lay in complete filth just so you could lessen your shivering enough to fall into an exhausted slumber? Of hunger that never goes away? Of owning nothing but what you can carry with you? Nothing. Ignorant troglodytes.

He'd always known humans were cruel. There are exceptions to every rule, his Uncles for instance; however an exception doesn't negate such a truth. All his life he experienced these cruelties: exclusions from the group, blatant stares, name calling, mockery, violence, distrust and assumptions. He bore them with frustration and growing hatred, and jealously. For certainly if he had been normal he would have been one of them, he wanted to belong, back then. No, humanity hadn't disgusted him until he'd left his sheltered childhood behind when he was 16 years old. A runaway, living on the streets, he saw the city as it was for the first time. The casual cruelty humans inflicted on each other. Suddenly he understood why so many of his uncles came back to prison again and again. Why you had to belong to a gang. Why someone would risk prison for something stupid like stealing money from the accounts at their job. This city was an atrocity. If you weren't born in the right place, with the right opportunities, you had to close your eyes and your mind to follow blindly behind those that did. If you fought, if you rebelled, if you had the misfortune of having less, being less, being different, or making those in power uncomfortable… then you must be bad, evil, untrustworthy.

Yet he was the lucky one. What cruel fate, that everything that made him a mockery even to those very unfortunates with whom he had shared the streets, also allowed him to escape their fate? He had his intelligence, ingenuity, he had Minion. He always had Minion. The room was too quiet now. It'd be a week before he could began putting escape plan 145b into motion. Minion would need time to prepare, there was construction to do, contacts that needed more time to perform their roles. He still needed to heal. Impatiently he had begun pacing the room, his frustration only increasing at the noticeable limp in his stride. His prison wardrobe chaffed, and he longed to be wearing one of Minion's tailor made outfits. Now his heart ached, homesick, he closed him eyes. He paced the room by memory.

Briefly he allows himself to indulge in fantasy. He paces. The room is expansive and cluttered; the ceiling high dusty beams of an old warehouse. Overhead idea cards spin lazily on their red strings. Here small ideas come together to form the big picture, chaos becoming order in his mind. The room is too quiet. He needs music to think. He hits buttons on the remote until a pleasantly neutral woman's voice fills the room, some meaningless travel piece. Good enough. It's sound. Minion would in the back, cooking dinner. It's 6:47pm and he'd be cheerfully calling his Sir to eat in another 13 minutes. If Megamind strained his hearing he'd just be able to hear Minion humming and the comforting clank of the pots on the stove in their little jury rigged kitchen area. Megamind would of course be engrossed in drawing out blueprints when Minion called though. Lost in thought he wouldn't even realize the time until Minion tapped him on the shoulder with an exaggerated sigh and pushed the plate under Megamind's arms. Or maybe Minion would lift him bodily and carry him to the table to eat 'like civilized people'. He'd complain the whole way to Minion that he wasn't a child anymore, and to put him down, but he'd be smiling when they got to the table. The meal would be amazing of course. His fantastic fish had proven to be a culinary genius, at least as far as Megamind was concerned. He really should upgrade the stove, the whole kitchen really. Minion deserved it.

He flopped back into his chair and spun. It would be his newly acquired black office chair with the high back. Real leather, he smiled remembering the way it would feel under his hands. The background sound changed again, now they were talking about a new restaurant opening up downtown. Sighing Megamind looked up at the idea cloud, his memory showing him a card with a sketch for a small store. It wasn't much to look at, just a small shop front that would sit at the corner of 4th St and Franklin. There would be five small apartments above it for low income tenants, one reserved for the shop keeper. Taped to the sketch was a business card from a non-profit group, Caring Hands: _feeding America_. Only they couldn't get permission to use the building that stood there. It was condemned and abandoned; home to nothing but drug deals and delinquent teenagers. It looked like it belonged in that neighborhood, covered in graffiti, liter, and human waste. The people living in this neighborhood were in that the Caring Hands group called a food desert, no grocery stores, no shops, nothing more than a gas station in miles. The buses didn't run here. No one built shops here for fear of the Breakers gang and Psycho Delic's drug ring. No one here ever bothered calling the cops, they'd never come in time. Life here was suffering, and no one could afford to leave.

But if the building didn't exist anymore, say because some large machination, two aliens, and some well-placed explosives demolished it… well the city had a fund in place for replacing buildings that Megamind destroyed (funded mostly by anonymous donations), and who even remembers what the building was supposed to be anyway, so why should the construction workers worry about what plans they were given to build. By the time construction was done, the building title would be in the correct Hands, haha what puns, and the group would have both a high end security system and a steady supply of local "donations" to allow it to run its business both as a small grocery store for those of ok means and a charity for those with less. When the doors opened Megamind would have made sure that Psycho and the Breakers knew under whose protection this store was. Within a month his influence would cover most of the neighborhood. Any wishing to continue their criminal operation would play by his rules and pay him for the privilege. His long fingers steepled in front of him as he slid down in the chair smirking. It'd work, it would be the most ambitious plan he'd yet to put in motion, but it'd work, he knows it would. Its 7:02pm Minion isn't cooking; no one came to tell him it's dinner time. He opened his eyes with a frustrated sigh, heart aching.

It's only been four hours, 173 more hours before freedom, before Minion. The woman's voice on the TV grated at his nerves. He flipped through channels; reality TV drivel, cooking show with an annoying Sothern lady, squealing teens music idol's video, quote un quote history show about ancient Rome, news that wasn't reported on by Roxanne Ritchie, a fluff piece on Metro Man from the local PBS, idiotic political debate it's not like he can even vote, cowboy movie, infomercial and that product has no basis in scientific research anyway, documentary about octopuses… his finger paused on the channel button a rosy blush turning his cheeks violet and ears nearly pink. The blue alien glanced quickly at the door to his cell swallowing thickly before his eyes are dragged back to the screen and the swirling tentacles of the octopus. He shifts in his seat, fidgeting, eyes wide. Unconsciously he licked his lips. He thought they blocked all the porn sites in prisons. Part of his mind reminded him that humans wouldn't consider this pornographic, but it's mostly drown out by the part engrossed in how the two octopuses upon meeting begin curling their tentacles and…

A knock at the door has him jumping and fumbling at the remote, heart hammering. The TV ended up on another cooking show, something about cakes. He glanced guiltily at the door and was sure his entire being was lavender with his blush; who was he kidding, he's probably rose colored, his cheeks were flaming. He tried to find his voice, "-at?" No again, concentrate, presentation, you're fucking Megamind you laugh at mindless drones, "What is it, can't you see I'm a busy man?" better his voice barely dropped out.

The viewing window was open in the room's single door. The Warden stood looking in, was it just his imagination or did the Warden have more grey hairs then last visit. Even from the other side of the door Megamind could tell he was tired, angry, and frustrated. When wasn't he these days? Couldn't be helped, he really shouldn't care so much. "Was dangling the poor woman over the pier really necessary?" the Warden scowled into the cell.

Composing his face, Megamind let the chair swing to fully face James Woodridge, Warden of Metro City's Prison for the Criminally Gifted. "Oh Hoho, who else other than Metro Mahn's beloved could tempt him to the icy shores of Lake Michigan and thusly to his doom?" His face danced with exaggerated animation, finding his character again, the banter familiar and comforting.

"It was under 10 degrees out there, she could have frozen to death; don't you even care? This is a life not some game!" The fist striking the door adds to the exclamation, echoing the sharply spoken words.

Of course no one saw the heated blankets or safety netting, well Metro Man may have but he had the decency not to mention it. What was the point of it all if it didn't look insanely dangerous? Aloud Megamind just scoffed. "As if the well-being of any of Metrocity's banal population is of any concern to me."

There would be another hit against the door now, 'Damn it, Blue, it doesn't have to be this way. You're better than this!' a heartfelt rant about giving people a chance, mending his ways… it was coming wasn't it?

The Warden pressed his hand against the glass, eyes closed, resigned. That wasn't right. Megamind sat forward in his chair, tensed. "I don't know why I even bother" mumbled; Megamind was sure he wasn't supposed to hear that part. "Well, enjoy your 12 life sentences, Megamind, you're going to be here for a long time." And with that the Warden turned and walked away, his back ridged.

He's across the cell even before the Warden was finished turning, long blue hand pressed up against the glass were his father's hand had been. He could still feel the brief warmth on the glass. His mind screams, no come back, but his throat was tight with a silent sob. Maybe it'd be better if he could actually cry. Humans always describe it as cathartic, but he could only lean his forehead on the glass and let his shoulders shake. How many years had he argued with Dad to call him Megamind? Told his Dad how much he despised the name given to him? Longed for Dad to just accept the destiny handed down to the blue boy? So why did it hurt so much?

Syx Blue collapsed back into his chair. 168 hours left.


End file.
